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But for this ICE News Release, you probably wouldn't have known that "a potential vulnerability has been neutralized," to wit, undocumented janitors toiling away in Florida state office buildings.
And in related news, ICE put the big chill on undocumented tomato pickers in New York. These workers, prior to being deported, will be criminally prosecuted for using fake green cards or social security cards.
By any sane measure, California’s correctional system is in deep trouble. The Modesto Bee reminds us that it’s also shrouded in secrecy---and has been ever since 1995 when then-Governor Pete Wilson got tired of critical stories about prison abuse and solved that vexing little problem by all but locking out the press. Now with the system in ever greater chaos, even CA legislators are made nervous by the lack of light, and are mulling over a bill to lift the ban.
Texas lawmakers look at charges of abuse and neglect at the Evins Juvenile Center in Edinburg, TX, reports KGBT 4 TV. They find multi years worth of “mistreatment incidents,” a bare two weeks of training for guards, 12-year-olds housed with 18-year-old sex offenders, and more writes LYNN BREZOSKY for AP.
One year later in post-Katrina New Orleans, while the poor are still taking by far the biggest hit, the devastation is felt in all quarters. Here’s an interesting take on the world of NOLA attorneys in private practice by LEIGH JONES for the National Law Journal.
Meanwhile, back in criminal court, New Orleans District Attorney Eddie Jordan, who has been getting deservedly slammed for allowing such a monster backlog of cases to pile up for the past year without charges or arraignments, walks out on an ABC Nightline interview with Brian Ross writes VIC WALTERS also for ABC.
Sometimes the courts make the news before the media pick up on it. Today the federal Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit made the hit parade.
We (our government) brought Vatcharee Pronsivakulchai to the U.S. from Thailand to assist the DEA in a sting operation. Once we were done with her, we sought to deport her.
The Court said, "Don't think so."
Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Diaz, a 40-year-old career US Navy officer who served as a legal consultant at Guantanamo, has just been criminally charged with mailing classified information to an unauthorized person. It seems that some time between 2004 and 2005---during the period that the US was declining to say who was being held at Gitmo---Diaz transmitted classified documents listing names and other identifying information of detainees. Nobody’s saying to whom the names were sent other than it’s someone at a US-located NGO. If convicted, Diaz could get more than 36 years in prison. WILL DUNHAM of Reuters and LARRY O’DELL of AP both have the story.
A year after Katrina’s devastation, New Orleans Judge Arthur Hunter says it’s way past time to start releasing some of the more than 3000 prisoners who’ve been jailed since before the storm hit without ever seeing a lawyer or being actually charged with a crime. Hunter plans to begin reviewing cases today. "It's something the entire country should be concerned about," he told ROBERT CROWE of the Houston Chronicle. "If we're still part of the United States, and the Constitution still means something, why is the New Orleans criminal justice system still in shambles?".
Tulane law professor, Katherine Mattes, talks to AMY GOODMAN at Democracy Now about Hunter's controversial move.
And in a related development, law students are now working overtime to handle some of these cases, according to LIZA PORTEUS of Fox News.
Winning this week’s award for worst handling of the incarcerated mentally ill, Garfield County, Colorado, is being sued by the ACLU for denying treatment to inmates with serious mental problems if the prisoners didn’t have enough $ in their jail accounts, according to Channel 9 News. Then when the inmates (predictably) acted out, the Garfield County folks strapped them into restraint chairs. Lovely.
Aliens can be denied entry into the United States for a variety of reasons. But U.S. citizens with passports, under normal circumstances, cannot. Maybe these are not normal times.
DEMIAN BULWA in the San Francisco Chronicle has the story. Immigration law scholars are pondering the statutory source of authority for this latest action by the feds.
Now, more than a decade later, are things getting better? Not really, writes MASON STOCKSTILL of the Ontario Daily Bulletin as part of a four-part series called Criminal Neglect.
Here’s a two-sentence summary of the latest news on two school integration cases (both loaded with far-reaching implications) that will be unfolding in the nation’s top court this fall, then heard by the Supremes in December:
“The Bush administration has urged the Supreme Court to strike down voluntary school integration programs across the nation that exclude some students because of their race.
“Administration lawyers filed briefs this week in pending cases from Seattle and Louisville, Ky., on the side of white parents who are challenging "racial balancing" programs as unconstitutional.” DAVID G. SAVAGE of the Los Angeles Times lays out and analyzes the details.
Tune In!
The U.S. Census Bureau is announcing a lot of interesting new information Tuesday on Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005, containing findings from the Current Population Survey (CPS); and Income, Earnings, and Poverty Data from the 2005 American Community Survey (ACS). The CPS findings are national, while the ACS findings pertain to states, as well as counties and cities of 65,000 or more people. The ACS report also includes a comparison of earnings for men and women by selected characteristics, including industry and occupation.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/news_conferences/007338.html
In March of 2005, Peoria teenager, Montelle Talley, robbed middle-aged minister, Dwight Winnett, at gun point. Surprisingly, Winnett went to court and asked to personally mentor his robber rather than see him locked up. Under Illinois Balanced and Restorative Justice Initiative, the court agreed.
By law, balanced and restorative justice is supposed to be the philosophical underpinning of all juvenile court systems in Illinois. In reality, its implementation is spotty, but growing, writes PAM ADAMS of the Peoria Journal Star.
In jails it’s usually guy staffers who have sex with inmates (and there’s often force or "abuse of power" involved); in prisons it's more commonly the women on staff, and the sexual involvement is likely to be romantic, writes 2004-05 IJJ Criminal Justice Fellow, FRANK GREEN for the Richmond Times-Dispatch
This is a good news/bad news story. First the bad news: Last year, 44 of the 164,000 inmates in California prisons committed suicide---nearly twice as many as the 26 who took their lives in 2004, and almost double the national average for suicides in prisons. (Yet another un-cheery bellweather re: the overall health of the golden state’s correctional institutions.)
Now the good news: In a first-of-its-kind "Brother's Keeper" program, for the past 15 months a group of long-term San Quentin inmates have been learning to spot danger signs in fellow prisoners, in addition to being taught suicide prevention techniques. When the group graduated their course last week, they received lavish praise from SQ Warden Robert Ayers who said he hoped the program would expand, writes KRISTEN BENDER of the San Mateo County Times.
The fact that American citizens living in households with incomes of less than $15,000 a year are far less likely to vote than those in the $75,000 and above bracket is an issue that should be of concern to us all, according to COLE KRAWITZ AND JAY TOOLE writing for Newsday.
At present, there are approximately 1.2 million school age children with parents deployed in Iraq. In addition to the simple loss of the father or mother's presence for extended periods, an increasing number of kids are dealing with a parent’s death, injury and/or psychological disabilities. (1 in 6 soldiers in Iraq report symptoms of major depression, severe anxiety or PTSD.) As a consequence, a large number of those children are considered seriously "at risk" for behavioral and emotional problems, according to a research program called “Strengthening Military Families Following a Parent’s Wartime Deployment” at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute’s Center For Community Health.
The military itself has recognized the growing issue and has recently launched a program called “Project Ark” that provides intervention and support for some of the most affected teenagers, writes MONIQUE REUBEN for the American Forces Press Service.Study after study suggests that a close and supportive family relationship is one of the primary keys to successful prisoner rehabilitation and reintegration after release. Yet, many families of California prisoners say that much in the state’s visitor policy makes family contact unnecessarily difficult in the extreme. This “visiting abuse” will be the subject of a non-violent protest at Salinas Valley Prison tomorrow, Sunday, August 27.
There's a myth that crossing the border illegally is merely a "civil" offense, not a crime. Wrong. Crossing illegally is a federal misdemeanor. But the federal courts would come to a screeching halt if every border crosser were hauled before a magistrate.
On a small scale, however, the feds are doing just that. ALICIA A. CALDWELL has the story for the Associated Press.
London, Aug 24 (IANS) An Indian origin scientist, who had claimed he was the subject of racial discrimination at the hands of the scientist credited with creating the cloned sheep Dolly, has lost his case.
"Hector Vega is co-valedictorian of James Lick High School in East San Jose, winner of a $20,000 National Merit Scholarship and an entering freshman on a full scholarship at Santa Clara University.
He didn't speak a word of English five years ago when he arrived from Mexico, but he mastered the language in a year, advanced to honors classes and graduated from high school with a 4.0 grade-point average.
Vega is also an illegal immigrant." JESSIE MANGALIMAN in the San Jose Mercury News.
Today DHS Sec. Chertoff heads for South Texas in an attempt to move immigration reform off the dime. As Marc Cooper notes below ("White House Signals Immigration Compromise,") Bush may be willing to support the Pence / Hutchison plan.
This comes on the heels of Chertoff's announcement of 100% "catch-and-remove" on the southern and northern borders, as reported by LARA LAKES JORDAN for AP. (This begs the question, however, of how many are not being caught on any given day; catching and deporting one while ninety-nine make it through is no big deal. And we know that nearly half of the 12-20 million "illegals" are really "overstays," people who entered legally on visas and then never left.)
Meanwhile, business isn't buying what the Republicans are selling, as SARAH LUECK writes for the Wall Street Journal.
This from AP's Curt Woodward: OLYMPIA -- One of the first tests for Washington state's new gay civil rights law has an intriguing twist: The complaint was filed by a heterosexual woman.The state's discrimination watchdogs are investigating the case, which claims unmarried straight people should get the same domestic partner benefits as their gay and lesbian co-workers.But officials are treading carefully, Human Rights Commission Director Marc Brenman said, because upholding the claim could set a sweeping new precedent for Washington businesses.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/282225_gayrights23.html
"IXMIQUILPAN, Hidalgo — On a misty, moonless night, the group scurried down the canyon wall, their feet slipping in the ankle-high mud. The sirens grew louder as their guide, clad in a ski mask and known only as Poncho, urged them to run faster. "Hurry up! The Border Patrol is coming!"
A couple in matching designer tennis outfits loped awkwardly along, the boyfriend clutching a digital video camera and struggling to keep the pop-out screen steady.
The 20 or so people fleeing the fictional Border Patrol weren't undocumented immigrants; they were tourists about 700 miles from the border. Most are well-heeled professionals more likely to travel to the United States in an airplane than on foot." By JEREMY SCHWARTZ, Mexico City Bureau, Austin American-Statesman.
In the last eight years, California’s juvenile detention system, which houses an average of 4000 kids at any given time, has been the subject of 16 studies, investigations and/or audits— each exposing various aspects of the system's inadequate mental health care, abusive staff, poor educational services, appalling safety conditions, and a host of other problems. So what has been done as a result of the investigations et al to fix all these deficiencies? Precious little, reports NOAM N. LEVEY for the Los Angeles Times. Most of the facilities are “in the same woeful condition as ten years ago."
This from AP: Legislatures around the country are passing state laws to get tough on illegal immigration, but legal experts say many of those laws will turn out to be unconstitutional. More than 550 bills relating to illegal immigration were introduced in statehouses this year, and at least 77 were enacted, according to a survey presented last week at the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures.However, NCSL analyst Ann Morse told lawmakers at the conference that a 1986 federal law forbids states from enacting stricter criminal or civil penalties that those adopted by Congress.
http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8JJN9JO0.html
The US Commission on Civil Rights, meeting today (Aug. 18) has some interesting upcoming briefings http://www.usccr.gov/
| September 8, 2006 - Racially Identifiable School Districts in Omaha, NE | |
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| October 13, 2006 - Voter Fraud and Voter Intimidation | |
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| November 17, 2006 - Voting Rights in U.S. Territories | |
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| December 14, 2006 - Elementary and Secondary Desegregation |
Here's an interesting look at how tough it was to solve the 1951 murders of two black civil rights activists whose house was blown up by Ku Klux Klan members.
What can you say about the mind and heart of a federal prosecutor who insists on punishing a man for a crime he did not commit? These are the questions raised (answered, perhaps, only by Dostoevsky) by JOHN CAHER in this New York Law Journal piece.
Duarnis Saul Perez was born in the Dominican Republic and legally immigrated to the United States as a child. In 1988 his mother became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and by operation of law, Duarnis did too. But he didn't know it. His mother didn't know it. His lawyers didn't think to check it out. So, following a drug conviction, Perez was deported as an "aggravated felon." He came back, of course, and was then prosecuted for illegal re-entry, and sentenced to 57 months in prison. He served every day.
Slated for a second deportation, ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) belatedly informed Perez of his U.S. citizenship status and terminated removal proceedings. But Perez was still serving out the terms of his supervised release for the illegal re-entry conviction.
Perez petitioned to have his criminal conviction vacated, naturally, on grounds of actual innocence. Only aliens, after all, can be charged with illegal re-entry, and Perez, at all relevant times, was and is a U.S. citizen.
Incredibly (except to those of us who go toe-to-toe with the feds every day,) the Assistant U.S. Attorney opposed the petition, on the theory that it was Perez' burden to figure out his citizenship status, and if he hadn't, well, too bad. Never mind the fact that the government had constructive, if not actual, notice of Perez' automatic citizenship the moment his mother naturalized.
Fortunately for Perez, and for us, U.S. District Judge Lawrence E. Kahn of Albany, New York, made short work of the feds' position and granted Perez' habeas petition.
But back to the original question: why punish a man for a crime he did not commit?
If you've ever been in a federally-funded Legal Services office, you know these aren't fancy, upscale law offices. But AP dug through the documents and found that some of the people running the program are spending plenty of federal money for personal luxuries.http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LEGAL_RICH__POOR?SITE=FLROC&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-08-15-03-32-21
The nation's changing demographics impact our communities in many ways. A new survey shows "an extraordinary explosion of diversity all across the United States," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "It's diversity and immigration going hand in hand." http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DIVERSITY?SITE=FLROC&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-08-15-07-18-14
The number of immigrants living in American households rose 16 percent over the last five years, fueled largely by recent arrivals from Mexico, according to fresh data released by the Census Bureau.
And increasingly, immigrants are bypassing the traditional gateway states like California and New York and settling directly in parts of the country that until recently saw little immigrant activity — regions like the Upper Midwest, New England and the Rocky Mountain States. RICK LYMAN in The New York Times.
The 1980’s and 90’s were an era of get-tough, no-frills punishment; inmate populations climbed to record levels while education and training withered. Prisoners with little chance of getting a job and histories of substance abuse were sent home without help.
Now a countertrend is gathering force, part of an unfolding transformation in the way the criminal justice system deals with repeat offenders. After punishment has been meted out and time has been served, political leaders, police officers, corrections officials, churches and community groups are working together to offer so-called re-entry programs, many modest in scope but remarkable nonetheless. ERIK ECKHOLM in the New York Times.
Tougher immigration laws are contributing to an unprecedented labor shortage in the organic fields of California.http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-farm-scene-empty-fields,0,237366.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines
Execution was ousted from Polish law in 1989 just after the fall of communism. Now Poland's President, Lech Kaczynski, a member of the ultra-right Law and Justice party, wants to reverse his nation’s decision---as does his identical twin brother, Jaroslaw Kazcynski, whom he appointed as Prime Minister. Abolition of capital punishment handed "an unimaginable advantage to the criminal … the advantage of life over death," said President Kaczynski. The other 9 member states of the European Union (which Poland just joined in 2004) think vehemently otherwise---especially in that, to even talk with the EU about joining, it’s necessary to do away with capital punishment. STEPHANIE KENDRICK Tiscali.Europe
Spain’s reaction? Involve the gang’s teenage members in public life by legally registering the Kings as a cultural association eligible to receive state aid---in return for the gang’s pledge to forgo violence.
The deal was brokered after two years of negotiations by New York priest, Luis Barrios, long famous for his success with Bronx gangs. Barcelona’s acting mayor, Jordi Portabella, praised the Latin Kings’ decision as courageous and a success with “few precedents in Europe and the world.” THOMAS CATAN for the London TimesSince July 2005, New York subway riders have been subjected to random searches. The New York American Civil Liberties Union challenged the Constitutionality of the policy, calling the searches intrusive and inneffective. But Friday, the 2nd Circuit court of Appeals rejected the ACLU challenge, saying a lower court had correctly decided that the subway system was a "prime target" and the searches a "reasonably effective deterrent." USA Today
In response, law-related website, talkleft.com, has offered a uniquely graphic way express objections to the policy.
There are a few interesting civil rights cases in the courts right now, including one in Tennessee where an advocate of Ten Commandments displays, the Bill of Rights and a frequent political candidate has been indicted on civil rights, vandalism and theft charges after a Hispanic grocery store owner said she stole a Mexican flag in the business. http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/state/article/0,1406,KNS_348_4907269,00.html
Meanwhile in Maryland a former police officer pleaded guilty this week to two civil-rights charges for making anonymous death threats against black school children and a town's first black city council member. http://www.localnewsleader.com/elytimes/stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=209172
A cautionary tale reminding us to look beyond simple statistics: While crime overall has dropped in Los Angeles under the leadership of LA Police Chief William Bratton, this year, robberies are suddenly spiking. The cause of the rise in thefts isn't gangs, or lawbreakers released early from overcrowded jails. It's..... iPods---plus other top-of-the-line handheld electronic gear like Razr phones. It seems that kids are jacking them from each other at an alarming rate. The phenom is by no means limited to LA. In New York, police attributed a nearly 10% increase in robberies in the subway system to the so-called “ iPod effect.” London reports a related rise. UC Irvine criminology expert, George E. Tita, sagely suggests that iPod thieves have an advantage because iTunes listeners often "tune out their surroundings." ANDREW BLANKSTEIN and RICHARD WINTON for the Los Angeles Times
Anti-abortion legislators have enacted tight restrictions that bar state funding for all family planning grants in Missouri. But Planned Parenthood won’t have to repay about $900,000 awarded by the state department of health for family planning services several years ago, a Missouri Supreme Court has ruled. The suit challenging the grants was filed by the CEO of Gateway Medical Research Inc., a company that recruits locals to participate in clinical trials for generic drugs. DAVID A. LIEB reports for the Associated Press in the Kansas City Star.
In Alabama, where one abortion clinic was recently shut down, state officials met with anti-abortion groups before deciding that safety rules aren't clear and should be revised. Associated Press reporter DESIREE HUNTER's story appears in the Ledger-Enquirer.
California’s Public Policy Institute just released a revealing report called “Who’s in Prison: The changing Demographics of Incarceration." Among it’s findings the report shows large racial/ethnic disparities, that nearly half of the inmates had no high school diploma or GED, 64 percent of women inmates leave behind minor children, and the vast majority of prisoners are being returned from parole, most for parole violations.
First there was the inspiring story by ADAM LIPTAK in the New York Times about Donny Johnson, the Pelican Bay SHU prisoner doing life without parole, who paints intense and vivid abstracts on postcards with colors derived from the M&M’s he purchases from the prison commissary.
Then there was the follow-up story about how prison officials, after reading the NY Times story, are disciplining Johnson for having sold the paintings, never mind that he donated all his proceeds to a charity benefiting the kids of prisoners. ADAM LIPTAK, New York Times
Now in a separate, but eerily worrisome story, California State Assemblywoman, Jackie Goldberg has announced the opening of an art show in her office (starting this Saturday, to run though October) consisting entirely of prison drawings from---you guessed it---the Pelican Bay SHU. (“Art Behind Bars: drawings from the SHU at Pelican Bay Prison.”)
A juror who voted against awarding millions of dollars to Michael Evans, an Illinois man who spent 27 years in prison before DNA-testing freed him, said he believes police officers falsified and bungled so many elements of the original case that criminal charges should be brought against some of them. NATASHA KORECKI of the Chicago Sun Times.
The verdict in Evans' case came just weeks after the release of a report alleging that police torture, evidence fabrication, and witness coercion was systematic among the same general group of officers during the 1970s and 1980s according to ABC 7 and DAVID GIALANELLA of the Chicago Defender.
As DNA collection shifts from a research venture to a commercial enterprise, your genes are in demand. Private companies offer genetic analysis for clues to your ancestry, depression risk, even ideal eating habits. All you have to do is mail in a sample. But consumers beware, PATRICIA ROCHE and GEORGE ANNAS write in the New England Journal of Medicine. No federal privacy law prevents these companies from reselling collected DNA or retesting it later. Especially with the uncertain science backing up many analysts’ claims, they recommend keeping your DNA samples to yourself.
In an article in the same issue, ADAM J. WOLFBERG details the extensive repertory of genetic tests now available online.
In a troubling decision for journalists, a federal court ruled today that private citizens can be prosecuted for receiving leaks of classified information. The ruling was related to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) leak case.
“The Judge ruled,” writes STEVEN AFTERGOOD of Secrecy News, “that any First Amendment concerns regarding freedom of speech involving national defense information can be superseded by national security considerations.”
Since “national security considerations” may vary from administration to administration, often for reasons of politics, the ruling is causing alarm among many reporters and editors. For instance, says Aftergood, journalists who received the 2004 classified report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba on prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, could be prosecuted under the provisions of the Espionage Act, according to the new ruling, despite the report's importance for public debate.
In the wake of the nationwide lethal injection controversy, the American Bar Association passed a resolution at its annual meeting yesterday that takes a strong stand, not against the death penalty, but how it should be applied. From talkleft.com
After curfew violating teens at the Minnehaha County Detention Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, were told to strip to underwear and in some cases nude, 16-year-old Jodie Smook challenged the policy in a class action suit. Adults cannot be strip-searched for minor offenses without reasonable cause, pointed out Smook's lawyer, Matt Piers of Chicago, and juveniles are more emotionally vulnerable thus need more 4th amendment protection, not less.
A U.S. District Court agreed. But the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has just overturned that ruling. Smook and her attorney plan to appeal. Fox News
Applied Discovery, the firm that’s been handling the Enron e-mails needed for discovery in various civil suits resulting from the scandal, has announced that a software bug may have erased the text in an undetermined number of e-mails stretching over an 18-month period. Depending upon the scale of the problem, say lawyers, the error “could cost tens of millions of dollars to fix and could foul up both pending and settled Enron litigation.” BEN HALLMAN for American Lawyer
As the nation’s large baby boomer population ages, so will a big portion of America’s prison population. And when inmates get older, they get increasingly expensive to incarcerate, placing added burdens on already strained prison budgets. KESQ TV
Experts point out, however, that while aging inmates might be more costly to imprison, they are also becoming less likely to commit crimes. Thus some rethinking of incarceration policy might be in order.
"The benefits go down just as the cost goes up," said Franklin Zimring, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor who works with the Institute for Legal Research. "Why you need a $100,000-a-year guard for an offender in a wheelchair . . . you can't figure it out." BOB PURVIS of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
In the years since Bush stood atop the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center and pledged retaliation against "the people who knocked down these buildings," the federal government has undergone an unprecedented expansion and reorganization. Yet the counterterrorism infrastructure that resulted has become so immense and unwieldy that many looking at it from the outside, and even some on the inside, have trouble understanding how it works or how much safer it has made the country. KAREN DEYOUNG for The Washington Post.
After the Broward County, Florida sheriffs spent two weeks recording privileged inmate-attorney phone conversations, one startled lawyer complained, and the inmate-attorney recording was dutifully shut down. BCS officials claimed that their electronic snooping was the result of a glitch in the system.” Attorneys and defendants thought otherwise, and have sued. WANDA J. DEMARZO for the Miami Herald
While many jails and prisons monitor personal phone calls, a practice that has been mostly upheld in Federal Courts, lawyer client calls are another matter. But even the practice of snooping on personal calls is being legally tested again in Baton Rouge, LA., where defense attorneys want to toss out telephone recordings made without a warrant. AMY SHERMAN for the Miami Herald.
Two Washington judges were recently sanctioned by the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct---one for cheerleading, the other for religious insensitivity. To be specific, Tacoma Municipal Court Judge David Ladenburg threw a Muslim woman out of his courtroom because she declined to remove her head scarf. Then, elsewhere in the state, when Pierce County Superior Court Judge Beverly Grant was waiting to sentence a man for manslaughter, she asked everyone in the courtroom to join her in a rousing cheer for the Seattle Sea Hawks. The cheering session was not considered cheering at all by the friend and family of the man heading for prison, or the friends and family of the 28-year-old man he killed. CHRISTINE CLARRIDGE, the Seattle Times
Despite the advent of ever-more-powerful multi-drug therapy, the racial gap between AIDS survivors is widening -- and don’t assume that sexual risk-taking and socioeconomic class are the main reasons. Nor is the gap something biologically innate. Black people with AIDS are more likely to die than any other racial or ethnic group because they’re less likely to get antiretroviral therapy, be diagnosed early, or have private health insurance. University of California, San Francisco researchers report their findings in the Journal of Healthcare for the Poor and Underserved.
The study took place in San Francisco, which has a strong AIDS outreach network. That means the survival gap may be much worse in other cities around the country.
For background information and an audio interview with one of the study authors, go to Kaiser Family Foundation. The medical system urgently needs to address growing disparities in treatment, says study co-author WILLI McFARLAND, pointing out, "We have the tools."
NEW YORK (AP) - A Pakistani-born pilot is suing JetBlue Airways on charges that the carrier rescinded a job offer and told him it was because of his background.
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=AP&Date=20060809&ID=5933764The Center for Responsive Politics has an excellent analysis of the money behind yesterday's primaries. How much did they spend? Where did they get the money?
Oklahoma’s policy of death by lethal injection faced a serious challenge in Federal Court today when doctors testified that condemned inmates may risk painful death when this supposedly humane protocol is used. Oklahoma joins Montana, California and several others states in questioning the practice. Since 1976, Oklahoma has executed 81 people, third in the nation behind Texas and Virginia. HENRY WEINSTEIN of the Los Angeles Times
In an effort to shut down “straw” gun buyers---people who buy and register weapons in bulk, then sell them illegally to kids and felons who are prohibited from owning firearms---the Los Angeles City Council is considering passing an ordinance that requires gun owners to report any weapons stolen within 48 hours, or face legal consequences.
“When cops investigate the guns used in violent crimes, they will often trace them back to an individual who at the end of the day will just shrug, throw their hands up and say: 'Gosh, that gun was stolen from me some time ago' or 'I lost that gun,' " City Councilman Jack Weiss said. "That's not what's really going on.”
The Los Angeles Police Department strongly backs the measure. The NRA says it opposes it. PATRICK MCGREEVY for the Los Angeles Times
Twelve percent of New York’s approximately 70,000 inmates suffer from serious mental illness. At present those 8,000 inmates are punished for infractions as if they were healthy. In other words, if a schizophrenic acts out, he or she receives sanctions, not help---most often in the form of solitary confinement
For years, experts have warned that isolating the mentally ill causes further deterioration, and makes them three times as likely to commit suicide. For these reasons, California, Florida and Texas already ban the practice.
The recently passed New York bill would require that the mentally ill be assessed and treated, with new funds allocated to do so and a commission established to oversee the program.The bill is presently awaiting signature from NY Gov. George Pataki. Unsigned editorials from the Plattsburgh Press Republican and other papers around the state are urging Pataki to sign.
Meanwhile, in South Carolina, mentally ill inmates may soon be talking to shrinks via television. CHANTELLE JANELLE for WIS News 10
YUMA, Ariz. -- A sport-utility vehicle crammed with suspected illegal immigrants rolled over while attempting to outrun Border Patrol agents, killing nine people and injuring at least 12 others.The Chevy Suburban was carrying at least 21 people when the driver tried to circumvent a checkpoint on the highway. Associated Press.
The opinion of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down on Monday begins in the in the following way: “"This is the second appeal involving the detention and handcuffing of a nine-year-old student, Laquarius Gray, during her physical education class..”
The three judge panel went on to write that since the sheriff’s deputy who handcuffed young Laquarius was not afraid she would harm him or anybody else, his idea of slapping metal handcuffs (then tightening them, no less) on an elementary school student “to help persuade her to rid herself of her disrespectful attitude..” didn’t really wash legally at all. So, yes, the court affirmed, it was a violation of the girl’s fourth amendment rights, and no, the cop didn’t get partial immunity.
In the ongoing California prison crisis drama, the Modesto Bee has an unsigned editorial suggesting that the governor and many lawmakers are entirely wrong-headed in their methods of assessing the problem.
“The governor and others claim we need new prisons because California's population is increasing,” the editors write. “But they're looking at the wrong numbers. What they need to look at is California's state-prison-incarceration rates. In the early 1970s, the incarceration rate was about 100 per 100,000 population. Today, California has about 170,000 people in state prisons — an incarceration rate of more than 450 per 100,000.”
Incarcerating that much of one’s population comes with a hefty price tag, points out the Bee. In FY 1985-86, corrections took up 4.3 percent of the state’s budget. Now it’s at 8.8---and headed rapidly toward 10 percent.The answer, the editors suggest, is to find common sense ways of reducing the prison numbers through the use of sentencing alternatives such as conservation camps and fire crews for certain offenders, community facilities for others.
There was Operation Ceasefire in Boston, and San Francisco had its “Target Specific Enforcement” and now Oakland mayor and California Attorney General candidate, Jerry Brown, together with Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker, have a similar strategy to ID Oakland’s “top 100” gangsters and tell them they’d better watch their collective steps---or else.
The good news is that only real trouble makers, not fringe wannabes, are targeted. The bad news, according to civil liberty and gang intervention groups, is that that law enforcement may or may not be accurately clued in as to which homeboys are the ones that really bear watching. By VIC LEE for KGO TV
Florida led the way, but now fourteen other states have passed their own self-defense, “shoot first” laws that permit the use of deadly force if one feels threatened---or sort of threatened. Under most of the new statutes, using Florida’s as a model, this is stretched to mean that homeowners can preemptively shoot intruders who pose no threat to the householder’s safety.
“In effect,” said Anthony J. Sebok, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, “the law allows citizens to kill other citizens in defense of property.”
As it happens, such a shooting has recently occurred between neighbors quarreling over….. garbage placement.
The NRA says it will lobby for like laws in 8 more states in 2007. ADAM LIPTAK for the New York Times
African Americans and Hispanics are five times more likely than white people to wind up in the hospital because of uncontrolled diabetes and three times more likely to face lower-extremity amputations. The vulnerable health status of these groups emerges in a new analysis of racial and ethnic disparities in preventable hospitalizations by the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project.
In its story on the report, the Washington Times quotes researcher Roxanne Andrews: "The magnitude of these disparities was so high it surprised me."
Hispanics and African Americans are up to three times more likely than other groups to lack health insurance, facing high medical debt and untreated health problems as a result. Only about half of working Hispanics have employer-sponsored benefits. Commonwealth Fund researchers detail these disparities in a new report, Health Care Disconnect: Gaps in Coverage and Care for Minority Adults.
AMANDA GARDNER develops the story in Health Day.
An interesting standoff is ramping up in the state of Maryland around the issue of a recent wave of prison violence, including the deaths of two correctional officers, the first since 1984. Leaders of the state’s prison guards union are laying responsibility for the trouble at the doorstep of rehabilitation-minded prisons chief, Public Safety Secretary Mary Ann Saar, and asking for her head. Thus far, Saar and her boss, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., are standing firm, saying the blame isn't logic-based. But stay tuned. GREG GARLAND for the Baltimore Sun.
A decade ago, Texas completed what was then billed as the biggest prison program in the nation. Now, faced with a $360 million plan for two new prisons, many of the state’s lawmakers are reportedly looking for alternatives.
"It's always been safer politically to build the next prison, rather than stop and see whether that's really the smartest thing to do," says State Sen. John Whitmire. "But we're at a point where I don't think we can afford to do that anymore. . . . We have to look for a best solution to the problem, and that isn't more new prisons." MIKE WARD for the
Want to know something about an immigration judge? How often do they deny asylum? What is the nationality of the people they see in their court? How do his denial rates compare to other judges?
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a non-partisan research organization associated with Syracuse University, offers all kinds of information about more than 200 immigration judges in this country.
That's the consensus on Capitol Hill and among policy experts. It's even shared by President Bush, who has pushed for a comprehensive bill. During a recent meeting, Bush told Mexican President Vicente Fox that no immigration overhaul was likely in 2006, Fox said. FRANK DAVIES in The San Jose Mercury News.
PAT NOLAN, a former California assemblyman who went to prison in 1994, weighs in on the state’s prison reform crisis saying that the average prisoner spends most of his time idle, gets little or no help with the substance abuse problems that affect inmates at epidemic rates, and are given scant preparation “to make better choices” upon release.
“Why should we care?” writes Nolan. “Because what happens in prison doesn't stay in prison. More than 90% of those in prison eventually will be released. What kind of neighbors will they be? It is at our peril that we leave inmates unprepared for their return.” Published in the Los Angeles Times
Meanwhile in Kentucky, an innovative “Shakespeare Behind Bars” program claims a "100 percent success rate" in keeping inmates from coming back to prison, writes JAMES SANFORD in the Kalamazoo Gazette..
Kids whose parents moved to the bucolic Poconos to escape big city problems may be bringing some of those problems along with them. Law enforcement and observers disagree about whether the troublemakers are wannabes styling themselves as gangsters, or the real McCoy. MICHAEL RUBINKAM, AP.
In contrast, cops and government officials in Waterloo, Iowa, say that while certain east coast gangs like the Latin Kings have a presence in Black Hawk County, most of the area's estimated 400 gang members are deemed to be part of less organized, homegrown groups that the city hopes to address through intervention and prevention programs along with criminal prosecution. JEFF REINITZ, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.
And police in Cambridge, MA, are telling their gang-fearful residents to calm their worries, that a recent spike in juvenile crime does not mean that the Crips and/or Mara Salvatrucha has come to town. JANICE O’LEARY, Boston Globe.
The latest battle over the death penalty is being fought in the state of Montana as civil liberty and religious groups work to stop the August 11 execution of convicted triple murderer, David Dawson, by trying to convince the US District Court that the particular lethal injection protocol presently used by the Big Sky State is cruel and unusual. (Ironically, Dawson has called off any further appeals on his case.) CHARLES S. JOHNSON and JENNIFER MCKEE of the Billings Gazette and GWEN FLORIO of the Great Falls Tribune.
On the same subject, according to Reuters, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has decided to cut back on its list of offenses eligible for the death penalty. Jordan’s King Abdullah went so far as to predict that his nation will, in the near future, become the first Arab country to abolish capitol punishment altogether.
In the Los Angeles Times, JEANNE S. WOODFORD, the recent acting head of California’s troubled prison system, talks about the pressing need for inmate rehabilitation and parole reform. Woodford, who resigned her post in April, also takes some swings at “pandering” politicians, and the prisons guards union, which she labels “an obstacle to reform.” In discussing solutions, Woodford, points to corrections models that have met with success, such as Oregon's Prison Reform and Inmate Work Act.
Elsewhere in the state, PETER Y. SUSSMAN of the Mercury News lays out some of the larger issues that swirl around the CA Gov’s $8 billion a year prisons proposal, including the possibility of overhauling of the state's sentencing structure.
Dozens of Iranian professionals - among "the most educated elite in Iran" - were denied entry into the United States in the last ten days. All had been issued U.S. visas after having undergone extensive security checks, and were planning to attend a university reunion in Northern California. The State Department abruptly cancelled their visas just prior to their arrival in the U.S. TERESA WATANABE and LEE ROMNEY in the Los Angeles Times.